I've spent almost my entire career as a journalist covering tech in and around Silicon Valley, meeting entrepreneurs, executives and engineers, watching companies rise and fall (or in the case of Apple, rise, fall and rise again) and attending confabs and conferences. Before joining Forbes in February 2012, I had a very brief stint in corporate communications at HP (on purpose) and worked for more than six years on the tech team at Bloomberg News, where I dived into the financial side of tech. Before that, I was Silicon Valley bureau chief for Interactive Week, a contributor to Wired and Upside, and a reporter and news editor for MacWeek. The first computer game I ever played was Zork, my collection of now-vintage tech T-shirts includes a tie-dye BMUG classic and a HyperCard shirt featuring a dog and fire hydrant. When I can work at home, I settle into the black Herman Miller Aeron chair that I picked up when NeXT closed its doors. You can email me at cguglielmo@forbes.com.

Apple's Cook, Working to Change the World, Serves Up New Products But Few Surprises at WWDC

Tim Cook, addressing Apple’s annual conference for developers for the first time as CEO since taking over from Steve Jobs, said the company is developing products that will “change the world” and showed off new services aimed at helping to displace partner-turned-rival Google from its best-selling iPhone and iPad.

“The products we make, combined with the apps you create, can fundamentally change the world,” Cook said in the keynote address today at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco before a crowd of more than 5,000. “Only Apple could make such amazing hardware, software and services. We are so proud of these products as they are perfect examples of what Apple does best. And ultimately, it’s why people come to choose to come to work at Apple and with Apple — to do the very best work of their lives…to make a difference in the lives of so many people around the world.”

More than 5,000 developers descended on Moscone Center West in San Francisco for Apple's WWDC.

Since taking over as CEO in August, Cook, a longtime operations executive who was hired by Jobs in 1998, has successfully steered the company as it capitalizes on skyrocketing demand for the iPhone and iPad tablet. Still, Cook, unlike Jobs, only spent about15 minutes of the two-hour event on stage, turning over the product and technology introductions to other longtime Apple executives, including Phil Schiller, head of marketing, and Scott Forstall, who heads the mobile software team at Cupertino, California-based Apple. (The keynote is now available here and I was able to access it easily through Safari; didn’t have as much luck with Firefox or Chrome.

Those products — long rumored — included updates to the MacBook notebook line, a new version of the iOS mobile operating system that powers the iPhone and iPad with a new Maps service to challenge Google Maps, and an update to the computer operating system for the Mac, called OS X “Mountain Lion,” which will be released next month.

Apple fans began lining up yesterday for today’s keynote presentation, which kicks off the start of the five-day developer fest. “During last year’s conference, Steve Jobs eloquently described the way hardware and software interact seamlessly at Apple with the following statement: “if the hardware is the brain and sinew of our products, the software in them is their soul,” Brian White, an analyst at Topeka Capital Markets, said in an investors’ note this morning before the event. “Last year’s keynote unveiled new software products and we expect this year’s show to discuss new innovations in both hardware and software.”

MacBook Air, Pro

That’s exactly what Apple did, showing off faster versions of its ultrasleek MacBook Air notebook with the latest Intel chips, as well as a new high-end version of the MacBook Pro that features the same high-resolution Retina Display found in the iPhone 4S and in the third-generation iPad released earlier this year.

“It is a breakthrough and everyone is trying to copy it — and they find it’s not so easy,” Schiller said of the Air.

Rivals like Dell and HP who worried that Apple might release a lower-priced MacBook to take on their ultrabooks were spared, somewhat. The new MacBooks, all available today, didn’t really break any new ground price-wise. Apple cut the price of the Air by $100: the 11-inch model now starts at $999, and the 13-inch version is priced starting at $1,199.

The MacBook Pro is $1,199 for a 13-inch version, while the 15-inch model starts at $1,799.

And the new high-end MacBook Pro, which weighs 4.46 pounds, has a 15-inch screen and is 0.71 inches thick (or thin, depending on your point of view), starts at $2,199.

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I fully expect Apple to go the way of Microsoft. A company devoid of any soul and whose only reason for continuing to exist is the destruction of competitive innovation by way of patent hoarding, take-overs and proft seeking.

Apple’s customers will suffer the King’s clothes syndrome for quite a while I’m sure, but I do wonder – Why would any company ask their marketing chief to make a presentation – isn’t that just plain old selling?

As for coming up with truly new world-changing ideas – surely there’s an app for that. Right?